Valentina Matviyenko

MOSCOW, October 28. /TASS/. The cooling of relations between Russia and Britain is a temporary situation, speaker of Russia’s Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko told reporters on Wednesday answering a question from a TASS correspondent.

She admitted that "this took place at the political level." "I believe this is a temporary situation. Both Britain and Russia are interested in continuing the political dialogue and establishing mutually advantageous cooperation," Matviyenko said, adding that "this time would come, it was not far off."

The speaker thus commented on the remarks of the Russian Ambassador to London Alexander Yakovenko who said that all political contacts between the two countries had been suddenly severed at the initiative of the British side.

Matviyenko also noted that "the Federal Assembly [Russia’s parliament] felt no isolation whatsoever" in the field of inter-parliamentary relations. "On the contrary, our international contacts have become more intense. We see great interest of the parliaments of the absolute majority of countries in cooperating with the Federal Assembly," she said.

According to Matviyenko, at a recent assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Geneva a delegation of the British parliament was the first to approach her. "Two lawmakers who said they wanted to come to Moscow to establish contacts." "The cool-off period will come to an end, common sense will prevail," she said. "We will do our utmost to restore dialogue with our colleagues, including with the UK parliament," she added.

The Russian Ambassador to the UK Alexander Yakovenko earlier told the Times that political ties between London and Moscow had sunk to new lows amid developments in Syria and Ukraine.

For its part, the Kremlin voiced regret over London’s refusal to keep up the dialogue and said for resuming the contacts "the ball was absolutely on the side of British colleagues."